The Night A Star Fell From Palestone Sword
by sunshine and lollipops
Summary: Ashara Dayne's end is beautifully tragic. But did she actually jump? This will be very short, probably only four parts, as Ashara tells her story while pacing and fretting in Palestone Sword. Set immediately after Ned Stark and Howland Reed bring Dawn back to Starfall. Mostly a character study. I heart minor characters. Rated T for thematic elements and language.
1. Dusk

**AUTHOR'S NOTE AND DISCLAIMER:** This is a short (very short) fic about Ashara Dayne from ASOIAF which may or may not turn into a much larger story following the current timeline (and perhaps more show centric). When we get to the end, I'll let you know. This is a work of fanfiction. All familiar characters/characterizations belong to GRRM and/or D&D. Thanks for reading!

 _ **Dusk**_

They say many things about me. Men talk, women mutter, children listen. The world spins and spins like a banner caught in the sea breeze. I can only imagine that they'll talk more after this is finished.

Let them talk. Let them think what they want. The truth is a far graver thing.

No stolen or stillborn child pushes me to this brink. I want you to know that. My murdered brother's sword returned…no, not that either.

When I was a girl, I used to stand in the water. Down there, among those slick, black stones peeking out from high tide, I would watch ships sailing away from me, out into the sparkling, cerulean blue waters of the _Summer Sea_. I would wait until nightfall, when the sliver of moon rose over the Red Mountains, casting a silver sheen over gray twilight. The stars would peek out from their perches, watching, waiting, their reflections caught as little flecks of light in the deep black of unsettled water.

I was waiting too. Like those stars in the sky. But my salvation never came.

When I danced with Barristan Selmy that night at Harrenhal, I was tempted to tell him all. There are certain souls that reach out to our own and when I looked into that knight's sad blue eyes, I saw something deeper than the flash-flame, fair-weather affection I've received from other men. He said nothing to me of his desire, though it was there, palpable as the gentle touch of his large hand enveloping mine.

It's for the best. He couldn't have saved me. My fate was written in the stars long before I was born. And our fates are immoveable as the mountains.

Ned Stark, too. That damn fool. I told him enough. He knew enough. And still, he brought Arthur's sword back to me. Still, he looked me in the eye and told me that the Sword of the Morning was dead and that he was the one who killed him.

With his own sword. With _Dawn_. He left that part out…but I knew. Looking into a wolf's eyes, you can see all manner of truth.

A star slain by a star. It's the worst form of blasphemy.

I wept for my brother and I let Ned Stark hold me while I wept. More blasphemy. I shouldn't have let him touch me. Not with Arthur's blood on his hands. But I did, not understanding the tangle of emotions that mixed up in my heart—hot rage and cold despair at Arthur's death, the warm familiarity in Ned's embrace, hatred and fear and the dying gasp of young love put to the sword and drawn out, bleeding. I just wanted someone to hold me. And so I let him. Until the sound of a waking newborn broke me out of black grief, my violet eyes seeking out the sound and finding a foundling child cradled in Howland Reed's arms.

I looked at Ned and he looked at me. I started to shake with the secret I saw reflected in his eyes and pulled away from his embrace too quickly, as if burned by fire. Dragon fire. Or doused in ice. Sheets and sheets of winter's sputtering blue flames.

The child cried for its dead mother and the men tried to comfort it unsuccessfully. They were still in battle dress, blood and dirt still stuck beneath their fingernails. A child of ice and fire, born in blood and violence and now, brought to Starfall.

The prophesies swirling back to life in that moment were too numerous to count. The fevered dreams of my youth fell back on me like a flood. I felt the room spinning and _Dawn_ shimmered with a white brilliance that burned brighter through the saltwater tears that otherwise blinded my vision. The ancient words of my house echoed through my head, again and again and again.

I closed my eyes. And all the while the orphan child's cries for its mother continued, filling the great, high chambers of Starfall with the loneliest, bleakest sound in all the world. I couldn't stay in that room a moment longer.

I locked myself in this tower and I haven't come out since.


	2. Darkness

**_Darkness_**

"The Sword of the Morning is dead," I spoke these words to the night air, as a prayer, with the window thrown wide open to the chill of sea breeze, with my eyes on the endless black sheet spread out over the dome of the sky. No stars were visible yet. None that mattered. The deep, bruised blue of the horizon slid slowly down beneath the waterline. I repeated, softer, "My brother is _dead_."

I stood vigil at that window, arms crossed over the smooth white silk at my breast, fingers digging into the cold skin of my bare shoulders, eyes on the sky. I had stood there for some time, waiting for the stars to appear.

All my life, I've sat in this window, knees drawn up under me, watching the busy, pulsing life of Starfall pass by from the highest perch I could find. Ships swaying on the water, where the raging, frothing Torrentine meets the wider sea. Young men in the courtyard, besting each other with blunt blades and teasing the winners by declaring them _Dagger of the Morning_. Children climbing over the clutter of rocks, all weather-beaten and smoothed down by the spray of salt-spun storms, finding treasures hid among the slick seaweed and bits of broken shells. Mother, before she died, sitting in the flower gardens with her maids, spinning long-stemmed aster and lilies between her long fingers.

But this is what I remember most. Arthur, returning home, never failed to look up at this window. I could picture him down there still, grinning widely as our eyes met, raising his hand in a high wave above his tawny head.

My brother was good. He was kind. He was a true knight. Perhaps the last one. And now he's dead.

" _Dawn returns as the Long Night approaches._ " I heard a woman's voice behind me, as if she stood on the opposite side of the stone-floored tower. Her diction was clear, careful and full of sinister confidence. For a wraith, anyway.

Of course, she'd turn up now. Of course, she'd haunt my darkest hour.

Since I was seven years old, this same shadow woman, in her red robes and lacquered mask, has never failed to whisper in my ear when I need silence most.

I didn't turn around. I refused to be distracted from my watch. The shadow woman continued, never one to care if I answered her or not.

" _The boy is born of ice and fire._ " So, it was a boy then? Rhaegar would have been pleased.

Men always want sons. Show me a man who loves his daughter half as well as his son. My father loved me dearly. When I was still a little girl, he made crowns of daisy chains to place on my raven-black head, calling me Princess of Starlight and Ashara, Lady of Seawater and Violets. But if the gods asked him to choose between me and Arthur, I'd be the one sacrificed to their fickle whims. Without question, without regret, without a moment of reflection.

I wonder...would Barristan Selmy's sad eyes have brightened if I laid a violet-eyed girl child in his arms as his first born? Or Ned? I've heard Catelyn Tully gave him a boy on the first try. She's always been so agreeable. She does exactly what's expected. Her adoration transferred from Brandon to Ned so seamlessly. Now imagine Brandon, with all his wolf's blood and rough, stolen kisses—would he understand a cool-tempered daughter who didn't always _insist_ or _take_ what she wants?…but rather waits, and waits, and waits some more.

Not likely. Any daughter of Brandon would have been Lyanna reborn so maybe this is all nonsense anyway. Lyanna didn't wait. She ran off with Rhaegar and sparked the tinder on everything that's happened since. Was it worth it? I wonder if Ned asked his headstrong sister that.

I hope he understands now. I hope he understands that Robert's righteous and noble rebellion was all based on lies. Robert, Lyanna and Rhaegar burned the countryside with their endless, fiery passions, leaving nothing behind but ash and death.

" _Ash is the child of fire and blood. Death is the mother of all._ "

"Leave me alone," I said to the woman behind me. _If_ she was behind me, and not just a voice from halfway around the world, haunting my steps for reasons known only to her. "I have no ear for your riddles tonight."

" _For the night is dark and full of terrors, Ashara._ "

"Oh, you have no idea," I muttered bitterly.


	3. Deep Midnight

**_Deep Midnight_**

There it was! The night sky turned over many times in its restless sleep. The constellation now rising from the sea bath was the one I'd been waiting for. My skin crawled with the fear of apprehension and I had to force myself to breathe.

" _You'll find no answers in the stars,_ " the red woman said bluntly. She was standing beside me now, a ghost-serpent hissing in my ear. " _They do not waste their words on mortal men. Or grieving women._ "

"They _will_ speak to me," I answered, with forced conviction. The stars have never told me anything at all. The last Dayne who could read the heavens died thousands of years ago. But I was their daughter and they would tell me what I wanted to know tonight. If not...I felt hot tears burn at the corners of my eyes. Stubbornly, I used the back of my hand to keep them back.

" _They speak to no one_ ," the shadow binder continued, uninvited. Why was she still here? What did she want with me? She was older than I was. Perhaps much older. Certainly wiser in the knowledge of things unseen and unexplained. But she was wrong in this.

She had to be wrong. I put all my hope and trust in those stars. The _Sword of the Morning_ , the true _Sword of the Morning_ would show me what I desired. It was our sigil. It was our hope. It wouldn't fail me. Not now, when our family had been cast in such gray shadows.

Perhaps if Allyria had been older, I wouldn't have felt so alone. With Elia in her grave, I needed a sister now more than ever. But Allyria was just a child sleeping soundly in the nursery, innocent to far more than the storm raging in my head.

Ned and Howland Reed had left the island for the mainland an hour ago. From my window in Palestone Sword, I saw the torches flickering from the castle down to the docks. I could picture Ned's grim expression and a parting, regretful glance up at this tower as they boarded the ferry, leaving me, the last Lady of Starfall, alone in her grief. He couldn't linger, not here, not with a Targaryen child to hide away and rebellion to finish. And he knew better than to try and coax me out of this tower.

Still, I wish he would have tried.

For now I was truly alone, with only ghosts and a shadow woman for company.

I had never felt this alone, not in all the months of the uprising, with news of death and more death carried in by ravens from every corner of the realm. Not even at my mother's funeral, when my heart felt every bit as torn and tattered as it did this night. But Arthur and Elia were both here then, and their arms around my shoulders shielded all manner of dark thoughts from entering in through the windows and floorboards. Now they were both gone, leaving me behind...for what?

To watch this foregone play plod along to its terrible, natural conclusion?

I envy the Lords of Bear Island their words. I always have. _Here we stand_. In the face of innumerable horrors, the Mormonts always stand fast. If I could summon the Old Bear himself, Jeor Mormont, to me this moment I would. I would ask him how the _hell_ they hold to their words, when all hope is lost.

Stars don't stand. We watch. We wait. And in the end, we fall. Into fire and blood. Into mud and water.

" _You want to throw yourself off the Tower._ " The red woman reached into my head and pulled out the nearest thought. Saying the words out loud made them solid, adding vein and sinew to their dry, white bones. Whispered to the night, they were more real than the shadow binder's ghosted flesh. Her presence behind me was little more than a wisp of smoke.

I didn't answer. I didn't know the answer.

All I knew was that I was alone. This is why I watched. This is why I prayed. This is the nonsense that cluttered my mind and left me breathless. And now I was hoping for the impossible. If the _Sword of the Morning_ came up without that bright star in its hilt, it would somehow give weight to my brother's death and I would know that the stars mourned him as well. Perhaps their grief would temper mine.

But the constellation rose and the white star of the morning shone as bright as ever, piercing midnight with diamond brilliance, as if nothing had changed. The world moved on, dragging the living over the corpses of their loved ones. The gods didn't cry for my brother. They certainly didn't cry for me. They smiled, content to continue this bloody course, using us as playthings until each and every one was discarded, thrown under the stairs or dashed onto the rocks.

Two lonely tears marched down the sides of my face, leaving deeper, more painful scars than any knife blade. Finally, I let my gaze fall away from the tower window.


	4. Break of Dawn

_**Break of Dawn**_

Sunrise belongs to the Targaryens. It's all fire and blood spilling on the horizon. From this tower, I've seen the same massacre of color many times, bleeding out the waters of the _Summer Sea_ so vibrantly, so violently. For all the talk of new days and new beginnings, I hate sunrise.

But the hour before, with that pale lavender lain over the night sky like a funeral shroud...this is the hour of my house. This is the hour that gives us courage and keeps us safe.

I won't lie. I had been pacing for hours, fretting, frenzied, muttering old nonsense to myself, but I was settled now, standing up on the ledge of my seaward facing window, gazing down at the black rocks below. There was only one thing left to do. Still, I hesitated.

Two years ago, after leaving the banquet at Harrenhal, I went up to Elia's bedroom where we spoke of boys and men. I was still flushed from the dance and considered doing something rash. When I left her, I went to seek out one of my dance partners - Ned, Barristan, Jon Connington or Oberyn Martell. Which one...can you guess? I would have made him happy, if only for one night. But Rhaegar Targaryen, drunk, laughing, and on his way to Elia's bed, found me on his way up and stole some rough kisses on the stairs, holding me fast, whispering the name "Lyanna" in my ear and spoiling all my resolve.

The bitter taste of a dragon's kiss, so fickle, so capricious, lingered on my lips. Any kisses that followed would be mixed and tainted by its unwanted touch.

So instead I went up one of those dragon-burned spires, climbing the melted stone steps higher and higher, looking for a window like this one, to see what sights Harrenhal had that might compare to Starfall. It was all fields and flowers. A false spring under a new moon that was sharp and bright enough to cut bone and steel.

Naive, I thought that my troubles were something to ponder over. But then Rhaegar won the final tilt and crowned Lyanna Stark the Queen of Love and Beauty, while Elia sat so gravely shocked and silent beside me, pale-faced and rigid.

I met Barristan Selmy's forlorn gaze in that moment and felt as if the ground beneath all of us was cracking open. Like a star passing too close to the earth, I felt exposed and dragged down into mud. And though I have no gifts of prophecy, I swear I saw the next two years play out with so much clarity that I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out.

Still, I returned to King's Landing with Elia. Still, we all pretended Rhaegar was honorable and strong. No slander on the last dragon. No stain on his lauded pages in the history books.

At the memory of our foolish silence, I grinned in my window like a mad woman. The red woman, still hovering like the resident ghost of Palestone Sword, tipped her head at me. I shrugged, saying simply, "I hate dragons."

" _Dragons are fire made flesh._ " Behind her lacquered mask, she blinked her dark eyes, her voice low and deadly serious. " _There is no more wondrous creature in all the world._ "

"Fuck dragons," I answered, my violet eyes dancing wildly, I'm sure, resuming the laughter that had been missing since the last joust at Harrenhal. Only this laughter was wild, untamed, lacking in joy.

" _Magic is not to be mocked._ " She clasped her hands in front of her red robes.

"Fuck magic," I said bluntly. "Magic can't bring my brother back. Magic can't change the whims of the gods or stop us from loving those we shouldn't. I've waited my whole life to be saved from a fate that I've known was coming. You and your _damn_ veiled words give hope where there is none. But none of it matters now."

" _Each to its own. Dragons must burn. Bears must stand fast. Lions must slaughter. Wolves must lick wounds. And stars must fall._ " She was quoting herself. These were the first words the red woman said to me. I was seven years old and I never forgot them. I couldn't forget them. Said in the same breath that told me my father would die within the month. And by the next moon, my father was buried in the crypt.

"Well, I'm not jumping today," I replied, surprising myself, surprising the priestess. I hopped off the ledge of Palestone Sword, back onto the stone floor of the tower. There was nothing brave in this. If I were brave, I would jump off the tower and end it.

There was nothing left for me. I could never forgive Ned for killing Arthur. But I could never forgive Arthur for defending Rhaegar. Nor myself for not warning Elia sooner and then sitting next to her as she was blindsided so completely and callously by the man that was supposed to love her more than any other. Perhaps most of all, I could never forgive Barristan Selmy for not seeking me out after the dance and taking me far away from all these old and worn out contemplations. Didn't he love me enough? His sad blue eyes had said it so plainly.

" _You will fall._ " The red woman was emphatic and perhaps, I should have given her more attention than I did. But I was lost in times and regrets now gone forever. And ever since I was a little girl, I've thought of her as more apparition than anything else. I've never thought to ask her why she's been visiting me all these years. Too often, I tried ignoring her presence, proving to myself and everyone else that these visions were all in my head.

But what happened next wasn't in my head. I know, because I felt the hands of the red woman as she pushed me backwards towards the open window, her grip now flesh and bone, no longer the wisp of smoke and vapor that I expected. She was strong and caught me unaware. It happened so suddenly. I tumbled backwards, losing my footing even as I grasped at any handhold, the ledge, her hands, the mask covering her face.

As I fell from Palestone Sword, the mask came with me. With the red priestess finally revealed, I solved a riddle that I didn't know I needed to solve.

 _All this time, I've been asking the wrong questions._ This was the unhelpful thought that breezed into my head as I found myself falling down, down, down. I didn't scream, though maybe I should have. Dawn broke over the _Summer Sea_ and flooded vernal, violet light over the walls of Starfall. My black hair fluttered around my face like dark waters falling upwards, defying gravity. I saw flickers of sky, sea and the tower window becoming more and more distant above me.

The red woman smiled grimly from that window. I don't remember hitting the ground.

 _FINIS_

*

 **Author's Note** : So here we are. The star has fallen. Listen, I heart Quaithe as much as the next girl but she's wicked sketchy so I don't really feel bad about making her a villain. At least for the present. I'm considering a sequel to this. I have some ideas and I'd like to play around in more current ASOIAF timelines...and well, Ashara doesn't remember hitting the ground. Let me know if you'd like to see more.

Bisous, dear readers! Mwah!


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